Biggest "Fans"

When we visited my parents in Arizona, my mom threw a little party for a few of their friends to have a chance to come over and finally meet baby Grayson and baby Ryan. Many of my parents' friends have been following the development of the babies via the blog and Facebook so they were all very eager to finally get a chance to hug and squeeze the little ones in person. I wish I had taken more pictures, but here are a couple great ones that I got with Grayson and a few of her biggest "fans"!
Here is Sharon giving Grayson her bottle...she claimed that she hadn't done it in years, but she seemed like an old pro to G!

Mike just loved loving on Baby G

Meeting Santa

Everyone knows that Santa starts making his rounds the day after Thanksgiving, so we were pretty lucky that him and Mrs. Clause made a stop at my parents club when we were still in town. I was worried that Grayson would be scared of the big man in the red suit, but she seemed to think he was pretty neat. She really liked meeting Mrs. Clause too. :-) After posing for pictures, we had a great brunch! Yummm!!

Great Grandma Jean's 90th Birthday Party

Over Thanksgiving, my dad's whole family got together to celebrate Grandma Jean's 90th birthday. Grandma Jean is such a wonderful mother to three, grandmother to 6 and great grandmother to 6. Her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are so lucky to have her! We celebrated with a yummy lunch at Maggiano's.

Picture with all of her Grandkids and Great Grandkids

Our family

Daughters with mom and dad

Grayson was wonderful for the party -- she socialized for a little while, then took a nice snooze while we ate

Thanksgiving

My mom hosted Thanksgiving dinner. Along with my parents, sister Jaime, brother-in-law Chris and nephew Ryan, we were joined by my Aunt Sherry, my cousin Casey and her three daughters, my Grandma Jean and a lifelong family friend (and my God-Father), Ron. We were then joined for dessert by my dad's brother and his family. One of the highlights of the day was Grayson getting to meet her Great-Grandma Jean.

In typical AZ fashion, the November weather was beautiful!

Hanging with Daddy

Uncle Chris, Aunt Jaime and Cousin Ryan

Grandpa Wayne and cousin Ryan

Meeting Great Grandma Jean!

Playing with my cousin Maddie (mom's cousins daughter!)

Feeding time with Great Grandma!


Cousins Mark, Maddie and Sara

Cousins!!

You would think that the arrival of Grayson would be the most exciting thing that happened to our family this year. But just five weeks earlier my sister and her husband welcomed their first baby to the world! It was so neat for my sister and I to experience all things pregnancy and baby related together, but at the same time, it was a little sad to not be able to be there to meet my nephew when he was new to the world (they live in Atlanta!). Well, as you can imagine, the first family reunion post-baby was much anticipated. We all met up in Arizona for a weeklong Thanksgiving celebration...and we had so much to be thankful for. Here are some of my favorite pictures of Grayson hanging out with her cousin Ryan.

This was the first meeting....

Love / hate relationship :-)

Posing in our Christmas pajamas that Grandma and Grandpa bought us

Best buddies!

A very special birthday

I celebrated my first birthday as a mom this week. To treat myself, I left work early, went for a run outside to enjoy the unseasonably warm November day and then went to Smart Barre, a new exercise class that I have been trying out. Then Steve, Grandma Kathy and Grayson treated me to a dinner out at Terra Mediteranean Grill followed by ice cream sandwiches from Sweet Sammies. It was a perfect celebration!

Stephen surprised me with a gift from him and Grayson -- a necklace with her name and birthstone.

These pictures were from the next day -- I decided to get a jump on the holidays and Grayson was helping me trim the tree. She actually fell asleep as I was working.

Boise State Game

Last weekend, Stephen and I went to Boise, Idaho to see the infamous "blue field" and cheer on our Horned Frogs as they faced Boise State. It was our first time to leave Grayson, but we knew she was in great hands with Grandma Kathy. Boise was a really neat little town and we could not get over how friendly all of the people there were -- of course the win for TCU was the icing on the cake for a great weekend.

Although it looks like we are inside the stadium for this picture........

We are actually standing in front of someone's tailgating U-haul...the tailgating at Boise State was very impressive.

Celebrating the exciting win!

When I saw this onesie in a gift shop window, I couldn't contain myself....